Logs:In Which An Acquaintance Is Made (And Re-Made), One Man Contains Multitudes, And Two Monsters Hunt A Meal

In Which An Acquaintance Is Made (And Re-Made), One Man Contains Multitudes, And Two Monsters Hunt A Meal
Dramatis Personae Bruce, Hulk, Taylor
In Absentia	2020-11-07 << Are we doing this now? >>
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. It's a balmy autumn's afternoon, the sun shining watery but warm through the brilliant folliage that waves gently in a pleasant if not always fresh breeze. New York, like many other cities across the country, has been celebrating all day, though the tone of it has mellowed here, at least. Less ecstatic dancing and embracing in the streets, more board games in the grass and lazy picnics. Bruce is doing none of these, though. Dressed in a camel sports jacket, purple button-down, brown pleated front trousers, and brown brogues, he had been smoking while he was walking sedately along Avenue A, but stubs it out and tosses it as he changes course and drifts across the street into the park. His thoughts are an intricate synesthetic symphony, constantly shifting and responding to his skilled direction--here a snatch of "Where the Lost Things Go" from Mary Poppins Returns, there an estimate of the wavelength of blue in the sky that arches over them, all weaving around a more constant mind, like a banyan tree whose roots and branches entwine and shelter Bruce--and another mind slumbering in or around his, and several more scattered all around the city. What he has a harder time keeping up with are the thoughts of all the other minds all around them that constantly stray into their collective psyche. He's patiently spinning the more distracting ones onto their own streams an trying to assign them to orbit their own minds, though he this is clearly not quite so natural to him as managing his own thoughts, or Hive's. The basketball court has been occupied, and though there is only one person on one court and plenty of room around nobody seems particularly keen to join Taylor in the space. He's dressed more crisply than usual, today, and certainly not for sports in a rich wine-red slacks and vest over a cream button-down, subtly checked purple-red tie, the outfit very clearly tailored for him with how neatly it sits around his many arms. The steady ring of the ball against the ground, the swish of the net, the bounce again, is interrupted as Taylor looks up. Frowns. Heads toward the fence, one loooong arm behind him scooping the ball from where its started rolling away. He hooks fingers through the chain metal, leans lightly up against it. His eyes eventually light on Bruce as the man drifts nearer. Narrow. He raises his voice to call out across the path, "Since when are you Hive?" Bruce looks toward Taylor just before his speaks, his recognition immediate and mostly Hive's. But only mostly. There's a faint passing recollection of the man drifting somewhere beneath years of close acquaintance in a way that feels terribly dissonant. He shunts Hive's knowledge of Taylor aside--spools it into its own stream and sends it into the braided stream so that he can feel about for his own memory. There: a few panicked moments of violence, last year in May, almost exactly where they respectively stand now. His breath quickens and the other mind stirs. << BRUCE SCARED? >> rumbles, deep and concerned. << I'm fine (we're fine). >> That memory of Taylor gets spun into the rest, the stress of the recollection easing as it goes. All this takes place in a few bare seconds, just enough of a pause to feel awkward. "A couple of weeks," he answers, blinking at Taylor from behind his thick-framed glasses. "On and off." He pushes his glasses up where they'd started to slide down his nose. "I'm sorry we didn't get a change to talk properly, last time. I'm Bruce." "Bruce? Huh." Taylor's brows rumple slow as he looks Bruce over. He pulls the basketball-holding arm closer in to him, winding the arm around and around it so by the time it is pulled up next to his body, none of the gritty dirt-flecked surface of the ball touches his suit. "Yeah, that was a fucking mess. Did talk some, though, but you were --" He lifts an arm higher -- then higher, then higher, stretching it up to indicate up a good head taller than his own Not Insignificant height. "Well. Was a chaos." "Oh!" Bruce's eyes widen as he parses the significance of Taylor's gesturing. << He means Hulk... >> The very thought calls Hulk's awareness back up, reaching for Bruce's thought streams and understanding. << Taylor is friend! >> Hulk's voice is quieter this time. Then Bruce, fretting, << How do I explain this? (He can hear us.) >> "That wasn't--exactly--me." Faintly embarrassed. Hulk's eagerness is bright within him, reaching up for the surface of their mind. << Are we doing this now? >> Fearful, but he knows they're safe with Hive there. "I think he'd like to see you again, though." "What? It was just here in the park, remember?" One of Taylor's smallest arms is rubbing against his forehead as it scrunches up in thought. "Wait, who you got there with you? That's not Hive." Regardless of his confusion, << sup >> ripples quietly back in answer to Hulk's eager craning. << Taylor friend! >> Hulk replies, struggling his way toward full consciousness. Bruce winces, shaking his head. << Give me a moment, please, >> he pleads, and the stir of the other mind quiets for a moment. Music swells up in their mind again as that stream comes into the forefront, << Well, maybe all those things that you love so, are waiting in the place where the lost things go... >> "It was me at first, until it was him." He shrugs out of his jacket and takes his glasses off, slipping them into the breast pocket. << This is Hulk. >> The other consciousness surfaces fast and Bruce submerges, though he's not gone altogether. The streams of his thoughts spin deep and distant, beneath Hulk's bright ebullient presence. In the brief moment it takes for them to change places, their body expands abruptly, turning green and muscular and bursting from all their clothes except for black athletic trunks and, of course, the jacket they now hold in one massive fist. "TAYLOR!" Hulk bellows. << Not so loud, please! >> "Taylor," they repeat, in a heavy stage whisper, "Hulk glad to see you again!" "Wait, it's --" Taylor's eyes open wider. Then skate around the park, returning to Hulk as they burst into existence. His eyes widen, his arm rubbing against his head again. "Wait, wh -- you --" He squinches an eye up, a smile spreading -- slow, confused -- across his face. "Yo. Uh. Hulk? Sup?" He sounds very unconfident in this greeting, but his smile doesn't waver. "I thought -- What's the deal with Bruce?" One arm is snaking through the fence regardless, to tap lightly against Hulk's massive fist in not-quite-fistbump. "How you been?" Hulk bumps Taylor's arm ever so gently. "Hulk sleep a lot! But now Hulk awake." They look up at the trees and the changing leaves, the warm autumn sunlight on their face, their joy at being out in this lovely day loud and pure. "Bruce...deal?" They cock their head to one side, a wordless inquiry stretching out to Bruce!Hive, whose voice answers calmly, << He means what's going on with me. >> Hulk nods, mouth open in a silent "oh". Then, "Bruce help Hive be less sad." Uncertainly, "Still sad, but not starve. Hulk not so good at that." Taylor's eyes lower. He pulls away from the fence, moving around to slip through the gate. "Yeah, s'been real rough for Hive. Glad he's got good friends to help. Do you -- not eat? Big guy like you?" He tips his head back, looking up at Hulk. "What I meant was -- I don't know what I mean. I thought that you -- that Bruce -- I don't know what I thought. You some kinda shapeshifter?" "Hulk eat lots!" Hulk's enthusiasm at this thought is coupled with rising hunger. Said enthusiasm is almost immediately dampened. "But Hulk not good at buying food. Store people no like Hulk." << Most people no like Hulk... >> They're both disappointed and resigned about this. "Hulk and Bruce not same person." They frown. "Same...body. But body change. When Hulk come out, and when Bruce come out." Their heavy brows gather. "Is that...shapeshifter?" "Well, most people have crap taste. Not so good at handling people who look different." Taylor sounds less disappointed, more matter of fact. "Same body -- different people? That's -- a new one." He doesn't sound any less confused than before. "I don't know if that's shapeshifter. Maybe? Huh. More like a whole-person-shifter. Don't know a lot of people can do that trick." Hulk looks closely at Taylor's mass of arms--there's no revulsion in them, no reaction at all except a mildly positive curiosity--then out at the mass of mostly baseline humanity wandering around the park. "Taylor also have trouble in stores," they conclude in a low rumble. "Hulk not know anyone else who can whole-person-shift, either." They shrug their massive shoulders. "Hulk...not know many people at all." "Most of 'em, yeah. But --" Taylor slings one arm up around Hulks enormous shoulders, ignoring the stares as he gestures out of the park. "Just so happens I know one store that can handle you, people who won't give you shit. Good food, too. You hungry?" Hulk's excitement at Taylor's proposal is immediate and absolute. Bruce's anxiety spikes deep beneath the surface of their mind, but then he leans back against Hive's psyche and spins his fear out into its own thread. Wordlessly he draws Hulk's attention to the wallet in the inner pocket of their jacket. Hulk drapes own of their own arms over Taylor's shoulder, too, startlingly gentle for one so large and strong. "Hulk hungry!"